It has been a while since I've had a chance to sit and write a painting
article. Hopefully I can rectify that. I've done a couple of Star Adder
mechs lately so I'll do a couple articles on them and I'll start with a pair
of minis I painted in 2013.

Star Adder schemes are pretty straight forward.
They typically are black and dark blue with one or two colors as trim
colors. They tend to be very beginner friendly to paint. This early
version uses dry brushing along with base coating as your primary
techniques. All of the paints mentioned are from Vallejo's Game Color
line unless otherwise noted.

I started out with priming black like I do with
most of my minis. I did base coat everything with another coat of Black
just to ensure consistent coverage and color. Next I did a dry brush
with a mix of 1 part Black with 1 part Cold Grey over the entire mini.
This should lighten the whole thing and make the recesses stand out.
Lastly, I did a little light dry brushing with Cold Grey mostly
targeting surfaces that would receive more light, such as the head and
shoulder area.

Now we need to start working on the dark blue. The blue isn't just
limited to trim so you will want to find plenty of areas to get redone in
blue. I started by applying a solid layer of Night Blue on all of the
surfaces. Once the Night Blue is done, I came back with a layer of Imperial
Blue. This layer covered about 80% of the Night Blue you had previously
colored. Just remember to think about what would receive more light and the
lighter blue should go on those surfaces. Lastly, I used some Ultra Marine
Blue to either dry brush or edge some of the raised surfaces. Not much of
this will be needed to make the blue pop.

Now that the main colors of the
minis are done, we can move on to the trim. Epsilon calls for silver and
dark grey trim. Silver is easy and it doesn’t really need a second color to
go with it. For the grey trim, I used Cold Grey with some edges painted
using Stonewall Grey. I used Glorious Gold on the cockpit.

As I mentioned at
the beginning, it is a really simple paint scheme. The darker blues are very
forgiving for newer painters.